Shakespeare in the Park

June 24, 2013

This past weekend we decided to go see a production of Hamlet in Delaware Park in Buffalo. Since I am still sporting a walking boot for my sprained left ankle, we got there plenty early so we could park close and not have to walk far. As we were waiting for things to get started, I got this very serious candid of Erin.

She is decidedly not my “little” girl anymore. She is now taller than both Sarah and I by more than an inch and she’s still growing.

It’s really quite remarkable that there is a crew that erects a stage complete with lighting and a sound system in the middle of a park. Here is the stage before the show got started.

We initially were going to sit so center stage was directly in front of us, but we wound up moving to be able to see better, so this was then our view of the stage…

I didn’t get pictures of all of the actors, but here are my favorites.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Ophelia and Laertes

Polonius (who was my absolute favorite)

The man who played Polonius seemed to put his everything into the playing of the character. Then, upon Polonius’ death, he played one of the grave diggers. In both roles, he was absolutely wonderful.

Even though Jeff and I lived in Buffalo for about 3 1/2 years, we never went to see Shakespeare in the Park. Since the girls are currently very into Hamlet (David Tenant’s role as Hamlet to be specific), we decided that during the “off-season” (hockey, that is) we should go see a show. We all had a great deal of fun and the girls spent quite some time critiquing the performance afterward. As we were leaving, Erin asked if we could see it again before Hamlet is done…in 3 weeks. Hmmm…